No, I had the vaccination years ago for foreign travel and was very ill.
Hopefully the side effects will be far less now.

I had the vaccination, zero side effects (even though side effects were more or less guaranteed) apart from slightly sore arm - nothing like the reaction I have had with flu/covid/pneumonia. Protection starts 7 days after, second dose due in 4 weeks.

How do I go about getting the vaccine for this?

SWARM collective have an article on their blog, and tweets about this. They recommend speaking to your GUM, which is what I did even before the SWARM advice.

I’ve called 5 gum clinics today all have refused to give vaccine.
They said they are only giving it to gay men at the moment!

If you're in or near London Guy's hospital (near London Bridge/the Shard) have started a walk in clinic for the vaccine - there's information on their site. Anybody planning on making the trip would probably do well to call first and ask about it as if you're not deemed eligible (that is, either at high risk of catching monkey pox or likely to suffer serious illness if you do because of a weakened immune system or similar) will be turned away, and the queues are apparently huge.

Basically somebody working in the Soho walkups and seeing 20+ punters per shift will have a much stronger argument if they want it than somebody out in the boondocks seeing a handful of punters a week. It's not something I would expect to 'qualify' for and I'm fifteen minutes walk from the same hospital doing average 3-5 bookings a day.

Tldr; call 02071884040 to get the monkeypox vaccination

Thought I’d share my experience booking an appointment for the monkeypox vaccine in case it’s useful. I’m a cis female queer fssw in London.

Called Archway centre, was on hold for 40 mins and was told to book online: https://www.zesty.co.uk/practices/cnwl-mpx-vaccination, but there were no appointments available when I tried.

Contacted Clifden Centre/ Homerton hospital who informed me that, according to them, cis female SWs are not eligible at the moment (there’s a lot of confusion around this but we *are* a high risk group and *should* be eligible)

Finally called Guy’s hospital and got an appointment after being on hold for 1hr, 35 mins. They didn’t ask any eligibility questions. The booking number is 02071884040.

Hope this helps!

Guy’s hospital gives the vaccine to female SWs, call the number above to book!

Does anyone know of it available for female sps in the northwest please